195 points was what fourth place netted me. Not bad.

For the Cavalry battle, everyone knew who the target was. Izuku Midoriya. 10 Million points. So no one was teaming with him.

Thankfully, no one was a dick about it.

"Sorry, Izuku-kun," Mina said to him playfully. "I want to see how good you've gotten since our last spar!"

"I understand," Izuku chuckled, Ochaco playfully punching Mina in the shoulder as the pink girl pretended to be wounded.

Still, the teams were forming quickly. Shinso gathered his team first. The violet-haired man pulled together Monoma and Manga, then grabbed Mina as she left Izuku, the pinkette accepting. In my head, I labeled them Team SHUT-UP ALREADY.

Others had clearly teamed up for sheer power instead. Bakugo had pulled together Kirishima, aka his second best friend, Ibara, and Honenuki. A very powerful team.

Shoto got a more technical group together. Tenya, after a weirdly intense conversation with Izuku and Ochaco, joined him, followed by Momo. Tetsutetsu was a surprise, but apparently Shoto and him got along well? Who woulda thunk it?

Meanwhile, I grabbed Mineta and Pony immediately.

"I've got enough power to spare," was my explanation. "I need technique and range that doesn't light things on fire, and you guys have both."

"Hm, hm!" Mineta and Pony said in unison, grinning up at me.

I looked around, thinking. I was obviously the horse. Mineta and Pony would be perfect long range support. Just needed one more thing.

"...Pony? Do we have anyone who could be a good force multiplier?" I asked her. "Someone who could be a wild card?"

"A wild card?" Pony looked over the group of students. She scratched at the base of her left horn while thinking to herself. Then her eyes widened. "No one picked- But he's-!"

Mineta and I shared a look as Pony ran off, apparently too excited to explain herself. When I saw who she was approaching, I wondered at the choice for just a sec. Only one.

"Pony might be a genius."

"Yeah, she's pretty smart!" Mineta agreed.

----------------------------------------

The battle was about to begin. The teams were set, the bands with all the numbers on them had been spread about, with mine now wrapped around my head.

"I feel like Ryu," I told the others resting on my back now. Obviously I was the horse. What was I gonna do, step on them? I weighed a ton and was getting heavier everyday.

"You play Street Fighter?" Mineta asked. He rested on the center of my back. While he had a good throwing arm, he still needed a good vantage point, so being able to move about my back and get different angles for attack was to his benefit.

"All the time, when school wasn't my entire existence. Anyways, everybody understands the plan?"

"Right!" Pony said firmly. She was on my shoulders, grabbing my horns while her own were at the ready. Control over her horns meant she didn't need to worry as much about her aim, so sitting that high gave her a good view of the battlefield.

Our last member was holding on desperately to some of Mineta's pop-off balls, and I could feel him on my shell shifting around. "I'm ready!"

Midnight licked her lips. With a snap of her whip, she shouted. "START!"

"Now!" I shouted just as loudly. I leapt into the air, aiming towards one group. On my back I felt a fist wrapped in a jacket smack into my shell.

Moments later, a second impact struck with far more force, Nirengeki Shoda's quirk in action. Second Impact, as it was named, let Shoda make any hit he landed get followed up by a far more powerful one moments later. Good for capitalizing on a strike. Or, redirecting something.

Already leaping forward, the second impact sent me flying at great speed. Shoda and Mineta let out twin screams, while Pony whooped in excitement as we rocketed forward.

Right for Tsuyu Asui and her group. The frog girl looked up at me calmly as I rocketed down towards her. At the last second, a brown haired kid named Kosei who was acting as one of her horses, breathed out. A wide pane of solidified air flowed from his lips, flowing just to my left side. Solid Air, a quirk that let him turn his breath into panes of hardened material.

They weren't very tough, I shattered it with a claw swipe, but it slowed me down enough for Tsuyu's horses to run out of the way.

The ground shattered underneath me, exploding outwards. Tsuyu raised a casual eyebrow.

"Going right for me, kero?"

"You're the most dangerous person who is closest!" Mineta shouted from my back. He threw a grape ball that landed on a pane of solid air from Kosei. A horn from Pony flew outward, spearing through the ball and shattering the pane of air to push the ball into Kosei's shoe just before he could get away.

"Ah, man!" Kosei tried to pull away, but was stuck fast to the ground.

"Now!" I rushed forward, aiming to rip a headband off of Tsuyu.

Instead, they were suddenly leaning completely over, one of them dropping into his own shadow. That would be Shihai. His quirk, Black, let him join together with anything of the color. He got pretty creative with it. The kid with skin the color of night grinned at me as his feet sank into the ground.

"Light!" Pony roared. I let loose a small flame, the blaze of light brightening the area around us enough to remove Shihai's shadow. He snapped back upwards in an instant, bringing Tsuyu in range of my claw. I reached out again.

And a massive form smashed into my side. I reeled back, stumbling, while Mineta, Shoda, and Pony yelped. Tsuyu's group ran off, leaving us to face our new opponents.

Team Beast Mode was the name I gave them the instant I saw them. A team of animal themed quirks with some serious strength. Jorota, a brown furred kid who nearly matched me in height when transformed, was growling as he glared at me, his fangs bared. Behind him on his left, Mezo Shoji had his multiple arms erected as a semi-shield to defend the rider. Hiryu Rin was that rider, his left arm already shining with scales. The final horse was Kamakiri, a kid who looked like a praying mantis and swore like a sailor. He gnashed his teeth at us briefly.

"Hmm," I brushed at my headband, making sure it was still there. "Well boys, if you really wanted to take a shot at the king, you shouldn't have missed."

"Fuck that!" Kamakiri snapped. "We just wanted a piece of ya!"

"They did," Rin said, much more nervously. "I voted on going after Midoriya."

"Too many people are doing that," Shoji added. "Better to go for other targets."

"You jerks!" Mineta shouted. "We were just about to get another band!"

"Not a big deal, we'll just steal theirs," Pony said cheerily.

I leaned down, facing Jurota. He glared back at me. "Pony, Mineta, keep Rin occupied. Shoda, lead them through it. The big guy…"

He roared, rushing forward. I dropped down to all fours and roared back, meeting his charge. "Is MINE!"

At the center point, just before impact, Shoda smacked my elbows. The second impact went off milliseconds later, giving me the 'oomph' I needed to push the bestial teen back rather than get into a stalemate.

On Jurota's back, Rin raised a green hand. The emerald bits of hardened material fired from his hand, aiming for the headband on my neck. Pony's horns intercepted him. Jurota and I grappled briefly while Shoda shouted from my back.

"Mineta, focus on Kamakiri!"

"On it!"

"The fuck-" a grape fired toward Kamakiri. He raised one hand, the palm sprouting a long sword from his skin. His quirk, Razor Sharp, let him produce blades from anywhere on his body, something he relished in. He sliced through the grape ball. "You little shit!"

"Damn straight I am!" Mineta roared, throwing another grape ball, then another. Kamakiri stumbled back, slicing them out of the air.

Pony's horns began intermittently firing with much more speed than I was used to. Shoda was probably giving them extra speed with his quirk as well. The kid's quirk was USEFUL.

Which just left me to take on Jurota and Shoji. As I was wrestling with Jurota, both of us growling, while a single long limb ending in a mouth slipped under my arm, biting into the headband around my neck.

So I bit into the limb. "GRUMB!"

Shoji didn't flinch, though one of his other limbs did grow a mouth to speak. "Damn. Didn't think you'd do that."

I grit my teeth around that limb, then chomped down. In a spray of blood, Shoji lost an arm. The crowd let up a cacophony of noise that I ignored. Please, Shoji was a badass, he could take it. I leaned into Jurota, flashing bloodstained teeth.

"Come on, Beast Boy. I know that ain't all you've got."

Jurota grinned back and punched me in the face. I returned it. Back and forth, we smashed our fists into each other.

"Hahaha!" I busted out, headbutting him.

"Come on, Bowsa!" Jurota shouted back, laughing as well.

"Oh god, they're the same," Rin said, before he dodged a horn that was moments from hitting his headband.

"Everyone, now!" Shoda shouted, the little guy's voice cracking. Still, it got the point across. I jumped upwards while Shoda smacked my shell. At the same time, a horn was fired from Pony. It had a single grape ball attached to it. At the critical moment it suddenly sped forward, the grape ball attaching to Rin's headband as it passed. At the apex of my jump Second Impact activated again, sending me forward over Jurota and his team. We landed behind them, Pony grabbing her horn out of the air and ripping the headband off.

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"Damnit!" Rin shouted. "Jurota, Shoji, Kamakiri!"

"On it-"

"Not happening!" I spun around.

"Mineta, line!" Shoda shouted.

"RAAAAAA!" The tiny guy roared while he threw his grape balls in between us and them, which I blasted with fire. The balls erupted in flame, stopping Jurota in his tracks as his beast instincts kicked in.

"And now, run!" Shoda shouted.

"You mean find a new target," I rushed off, leaving Jurota and his team behind.

The tactic made sense. Take a headband, then move on. Don't steal all their headbands, don't leave them desperate to get them back. I just wanted to stay in the game. The number 1 position didn't matter as much until the later stages after all.

While I ran from our previous opponents, someone else rushed them for their remaining headbands.

"Who's next!?" I shouted out.

That was when a jet of glue slammed into my feet. I fell to my belly, yelping in shock. Shoda, Mineta, and Pony shouted in unison, barely grabbing on. I looked in the direction it had come from. "Bondo!?"

The aforementioned glue-dispenser headed kid sprayed another blast of glue at us. I intercepted it with a burst of flame, stopping him from covering us in the stuff and letting us see his team.

Bondo, as the biggest one, was the front horse, glue dripping out of the holes in his face. On his back, Kinoko Komori was grinning. She'd been shy when we first met. Nowadays she was more akin to a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, all smiles and immense knowledge about mushrooms. She gave me one of those smiles now, sticking her tongue out at me.

The other horses were Jiro and Kaminari. Funny that, for people argued as much as they did, I rarely saw them apart. Kaminari had something in his hand, just out of sight, while Jiro's earjacks were waving in the air.

"Heya, Bowser-kun!" Kinoko said playfully. "Stay still, will ya!"

"Not a chance!" I breathed another bunch of fire at my feet, burning off the glue with nothing but blacked bits remaining.

"Kaminari!" Jiro shouted.

"On it!" He fired a taser of all things at me, the prongs landing in my mouth just as I stopped breathing fire.

Then electricity ran through me. Fun fact, I wasn't too affected by lightning, unless it was through my mouth. I clenched my mouth tight without meaning to, growling at the pain.

"Bowser!" Pony shouted. "Hold on!"

Twin horns sliced out, aiming for Kaminari. They were shot out of the air by another blast of glue. Two of Mineta's grape balls fired off as well, but Jiro smacked them with her earlobes, leaving them stuck to each lobe.

"Bondo, cover them-"

The ground became quicksand. Being the heaviest, I sank down first, but everyone dropped into the ground. Then ice suddenly surrounded us, flying across the near-liquid ground and attaching to the dozens of teams battling it out. My feet and hands were stuck up to my shell in it along with the earth I was slowly sinking into.

"What the heck!?" Jiro shouted as she, Bondo, and Kaminari tried to fight out of it.

"Shoto," I snapped out with a grimace, glancing at the aforementioned kid.

"Bowser," the ice-user said in return, running past on top of Tenya, Momo, and Jozu Honenkuki. The last kid was able to turn non-living things to jelly with his quirk, Softening. Clever. Soften the ground to trap us in place so we couldn't avoid Shoto's ice attack.

I waited to bite at Shoto if he tried to steal a headband, but he avoided me and instead swiped them from other teams.

"He wants them to focus on us," Shoda said as we watched the other team leave at high speed.

"I figured," I mumbled, looking over at the other students. They were all trying to get out of the ice and earth now, but it wouldn't take long for the teams to do it.

"Okay. Hold tight."

"Oh no," Shoda and Mineta said in unison. Pony let out a whoop.

With a bit of a grin myself, I took a deep breath and let out a jet of fire that surrounded us in heat, melting the ice apart. At the same time, I pulled in my arms and legs as hard as I could, bringing them out of the earth and back into my shell. Finally, I spun.

Hard as I could, fast as I could. The liquidy earth around us splattered about, flying upwards along with chunks of ice as I drilled downwards. Before long, I reached down enough to get to solid ground again.

"SHODA!" I roared.

"Already done!"

A hard punch landed on my shell, Shoda yelping in pain. Moments later, as I flew out, second impact hit us again, launching my spinning form up and out along with the others. In mid-air, I popped out of my shell.

To find us flying towards Midoriya and his team.

"Eh?" I blinked. Midoriya blinked back. He had a jetpack on, and his whole team was flying.

"...Truce?" I asked him.

"Uh, yeah, truce." Midoriya said back.

Flying past them, both our teams ignored each other.

"Are you sure about that, Bowser?" Mineta asked me over the wind rushing around us. "That's 10 million points!"

"It's also a massive obvious target! I'd rather make sure we get to the next round! Pony, redirect!"

"No need!" Pony said. "The next team is coming for us!"

I looked around, and I swear my jaw dropped down to the floor.

Chikuchi had teamed up with Yui Kodai, Yosetsu Awase, and Reiko Yanaki. I hadn't noticed them team up. Made perfect sense why they had though. They were flying.

On a plane of paper, clearly controlled by both Chikuchi and Reiko in tandem, Reiko using her Poltergeist quirk. Based on the seams on the wings, Yosetsu had put them together at the atomic level with his Weld quirk, and Yui had turned the small pieces of paper into a goddamn defense platform.

A platform she could fire from. Chikuchi gave me a wide grin. "Sorry Bowser!"

Yui threw a… beat up old Hot Wheel? A tiny car-

"OH FUCK ME RUNNING!" I screamed as my mind put the pieces together. Her hands came together.

And suddenly, a car that belonged in a junkyard grew in front of us.

"SHIIIIIIT!" Pony, Shoda, and Mineta screamed in unison.

"Grrrraaaa!" I swiped my claws outward, smashing through the old metal and sending the pieces flying. The students below easily dodged it, but our forward momentum was completely killed because of the force I'd had to put into the car.

Leaving us right where the other team wanted us, falling through air as an easy target. Yui lifted a hand.

A bus. She was holding a goddamn bus the size of a toy. Was her quirk that broken, what the hell!?

She threw it with perfect form.

"SHODA!"

"O-On it!" A slap was followed moments later by a quick thrust to the left. I held my claws out, ready to rip through the bus the second it grew. Instead, it bounced off my hand.

Plastic. It was just… plastic. As I realized what had happened, the paper plane was already on top of us. Reiko and Chikuchi had twin looks of focus. Yui had something else in her hand. But Yosetsu had his own out, reaching forward.

He tapped a finger against my headband, combining his skin with the cloth. I breathed out a single tongue of flame too late, the team zipping past us at high speed.

"Got it!" Yosetsu shouted with glee, leaving us to fall towards the ground. "I-"

Shoda ripped the toy bus I'd caught out of my hand. Roaring with all his might, he tossed it with an overhand slap right after, like a tennis player. In mid-air, the bus zipped forward and smashed into Yosetsu's foot, completely unbalancing him as the paper plane flew.

"Gah-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" First he screamed in the pain any man who has stepped on a toy by accident feels. Moments later, he was screaming because he was falling out of the sky without a parachute.

"Catch him!" Shoda, Pony, and Chikuchi said in unison.

I did the only thing I could. I pointed my head away from Yosetsu and breathed a jet of flame. Propelled backwards by my fire, we dropped towards him. Too slowly. Then two of Pony's horns sped around to land on my stomach, pushing me faster, then faster when a Second Impact hit their bases.

"SPIN!" Mineta screamed.

As ordered, Pony twisted me around with her horns, allowing me to catch Yosetsu. I landed on the ground with him in my arms, dust and broken concrete flying.

For a moment, Yosetsu and I met eyes. He chuckled nervously. "Uh, truce?"

I ripped the headband away from him, Yosetsu letting it go, then tossed him at Tsuyu in the distance, sending her team sprawling.

"Truce," I mumbled, looking up at the screen.

We were in 5th place so far. We needed to be in the top four to continue. "Let's keep it up!"

"Y-Yeah!" Mineta shouted.

"Just please be more careful," Shoda said, sounding tired. "I don't want to overuse my quirk."

Fair. "All right. Let the rest of us handle this, MVP."

I kneeled down and started running on all fours, heading to the next bunch to get into another fight.